Trump Is Not Mistaken

This week President Trump has presented us with charts, calculations and figures representing tariffs as they currently exist. Have he and his team made mistakes in their calculations? 

This is from Wittgenstein (sort of). Suppose you ask Jean-Paul to divide 50 by two. His answer is 125,001.  Has he made a mistake?

No. Jean-Paul has no idea how to calculate. He doesn't know enough to make an error. In the words of the song, he can't get started.

Trump and his team have no idea how tariffs work or how to add them up or calculate impact and so on. 

They just make up numbers to put on charts. 

Vance

I just caught a glimpse of J. D. Vance on TV telling people that Canada cannot win a tariff war with the USA, 

I know nothing about economics, but is Canada required to fight this idiot's war? 

Trump seems determined to build up tariffs that block Mexico and Canada from our markets. Can Mexico and Canada develop more dependable markets in Europe, Asia and Africa? 

Let Trump have a war with Mr. Nobody. 

I suppose this kind of market shift would be financially rough for a few years, but in the end Canada and Mexico would enjoy dependable systems. 

America won't always have a psychopath in charge, and trade with neighboring countries will someday improve. Until then I still don't know anything about economics.  

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Hoover

 

During the first years of the Great Depression, Republican President Herbert Hoover remained convinced that the economy would correct itself. He had no plan and offered no way out. He was dour. He didn't relate to common people, many of whom went to bed hungry. But almost 40% voted for him in 1932. 

Why?

Hoover voters had many reasons, but maybe the main one was that the Democrats had favored the wrong side in the Civil War, about 70 years before. That mattered more than lunch and dinner. 

 

The Two Liars Problem

Imagine that two psychopaths, representing two nations, meet to make a treaty.  Neither man has ever told the truth in his life. In fact, they do not understand what regular people mean by "truth."

By psycho standards, whether a sentence is true or false depends on what they fancy at a given moment. (For the rest of us, a sentence is true if it can be validated by evidence etc.)

I don't see how two psychopaths can agree on meaningful sentences. The meanings will shift too rapidly.  A treaty they sign will mean everything and nothing.  

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Schumer

My wife and I  were born during the New Deal, which made us Democrats until Susan switched to a no-party registration. You can do that on-line, and I followed her example a week ago. 

We left because the Democratic leaders lack backbone. Consider the hapless Charles Schumer. 

I think voters look for aggressive leaders the way Lincoln looked for General Grant. Someone who fights. I could be wrong, but I want leaders who do the right thing (Spike Lee). 

Less carefully weighed surrender and more doing what is right. 

Jew Or Not A Jew?

Jew or not a Jew?

Yesterday President Trump announced  that Senator Charles Schumer is no longer a Jew. Now, Trump said, he's a Palestinian.

When we married 60 years ago, Susan told me she was a Jew.  But she had not been checked by Donald Trump.  

I'm pretty sure that if Trump does vet Susan, he will find she is, like Schumer, a Palestinian. Or maybe a Canaanite. 

The Canaanites, often overlooked, were a Semitic civilization that flourished  in  the Middle East about 20 centuries ago. At one point they conquered Egypt. 

Their descendants include the Phoenicians, the Israelites and Susan. 

Unless Trump is as mad as a box of frogs. 

Men Who Will Rot in Hell

Following cues from Indivisible, I made my way to a demonstration on Saturday. About 60 people gathered in front of the Santa Rosa Tesla dealership at 3286 Airway Drive. They meet there on Saturdays at 11.   

Opinions differ about the owner of Tesla, Elon Musk. Some consider him a businessman. Others see him as a half-formed, Stone Age belly that eats its own vomit. 

I have not met the man. He's not for me to judge. Two of his grandparents joined the Nazi party in Canada, but that's little more than a fact. Another fact, Musk is the world's richest capitalist! 

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The Night of the Black Snow

Yesterday Japan commemorated a gigantic fire-bombing of Tokyo in World War Two.  The Japanese call it "the night of the black snow."

In one night 80 years ago more than 105,000 Japanese civilians were burned to death by the American Army Airforce. The residential streets of Tokyo filled with heaps of charred bodies. Survivors watched entire families burn. 

The Tokyo fire, created with incendiary bombs, has been largely ignored in favor of the two atomic bombings that followed. 

The Tokyo raid remains the most destructive bombing event in history. 334 B-29s dropped 1,665 tons of incendiaries, including a half-million cylinders of napalm and white phosphorus. Most of this hit civilian neighborhoods with wooden homes. The area also contained deliberately dispersed Japanese factories. They were targets. Civilian deaths were ignored. 

 

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No-Fight Leaders

The Democratic leaders decided to listen politely while the Fascists roared during the state of the union speech. There was no fight in the Democratic leaders. They will sit quietly through the end of democracy, always decent and hoping someone else will save them. 

A number of rank and file members waved signs. Brave Al Green got  thrown out, and several members left with him. Some members stayed home, boycotting.  

But the Democratic leaders called for polite deference.  They are useless. The party needs leaders who can connect with voters. 

Don't sit politely. Many families are about to lose their health care. 

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